Nasscom pushes IT to open shop in EU, other America

Nasscom is aggressively pursuing newer markets such as Australia, Sweden along with Mexico and Mauritius in a bid to diversify its reliance on the US and Europe.Surabhi Agarwal | ET Bureau | October 02, 2017, 08:51 IST

NEW DELHI: Indian ITindustry body Nasscom is aggressively pursuing newer markets such as Australia, Sweden along with Mexico and Mauritius in a bid to diversify its reliance on the US and Europe.

Currently, the US contributes almost 60% of the industry’s export revenues followed by 17-18% by the UK. While European countries contribute around 11% of the revenues, only 10% comes from the rest of the world.

A top official of Nasscom said that the idea is to diversify the industry’s dependence on a few geographies as well as to tap into newer regions to increase the possible market size.

“Very little currently comes from the rest of the world, we are making an effort to focus on strategic markets such as Australia, China, Japan, Nordic countries,” said Shivendra Singh, head of global trade development at Nasscom. He added that countries such as Mauritius are also of importance since they could act as an entry point for South Africa.Mexico is also important due to its proximity with the US. Sweden is the largest market in the Nordics region accounting for 40% of total regional IT spend of $60 billion.

Major Indian companies such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies among others already have presence in the country. Nasscom is aiming for deeper penetration in Sweden as well as other Nordic countries such as Denmark,Finland and Norway.

Nasscom is partnering with local trade bodies as well as organising road shows to increase awareness about Indian IT companies. In Israel, it has hired a consultant to do speed dating between Indian and Israel based companies.

“They have the technology, we have the reach since Israel has a small domestic market,” said Singh. While the opportunity in countries such as Australia is majorly in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) and Retail; in Israel, it is around cyber security; in UK, BFSI is a big opportunity and Nordic countries also have large insurance companies. Singh added that east European markets like Poland and Romania also offer a huge opportunity for contact centres.